Rights question

Gene Hackman is a Danville native, and when he receives the Lifetime
Achievement Award at the Golden Globes later this month, a local performing
arts center is having a party to celebrate; it's also a fundraiser for the
center's restoration. They'll have a large-screen TV tuned to the G.G.
broadcast when Hackman accepts the award, but they also want to show clips
from some of his films intermittently through the night. What they had in
mind was copying these clips onto a VHS compilation tape. I told them that
such copying would be illegal.

However, what if the individual (legally-purchased but home license) videos
were cued up to the correct spots beforehand and shown? I know it's not an
educational setting, but they're talking about 1 or 2-minute clips from some
of his best-known films, interspersed w/ a local person discussing the film.
Is there a formula for clip length/percentage of total running time? And
would there be a limit on the total number of clips allowed -- i.e. would
ten 1-minute clips be considered 10 minutes total and thus not allowed, or
are the individual lengths what is considered? Am I splitting hairs???